Sean's Here!

My friend Sean, from Vancouver arrived a few days ago. He’ll be staying with me for about 12 days before returning home.

He’s been here so far for two full days and he’s already fixed one of my chairs, cooked dinner once, and made lunches for us another. He also does the dishes while he cooks. Upon waking up one day, suggesting that we should go for a hike and only had 30 minutes before catching a train, he had made sandwiches for us in about the time that it took me to get changed.

Sean’s a good guy to have around.

We’ve also managed to eat sushi, soba, udon, curry, onigiri, ramen, and gyoza since he arrived late Friday night; I like having someone around that can keep up with my appetite. He’s also been able to see most of downtown Taira, been to the ocean, and hiked through Setogaro park, which follows a river up into the mountains where he climbed up alongside several waterfalls.

It’s Golden Week this week, so there are lots of festivals to see. I think we’ll try to get to Onahama today and then Yotsukura tomorrow.

Here’s a few photos from our day yesterday.

Ms. Green and Me

The other day, I was reading through one of my textbooks and i came across an example dialogue between two characters: Ms. Green and Megumi. The details of the dialogue aren't really important, but what i did notice was that Ms. Green was from Vancouver, she bikes to school, and she is a Leo. She also thinks Vancouver is a beautiful city. I couldn't help but think that Ms. Green and myself have a lot in common.

Our horoscope for tomorrow is as follows:

You can feel the energy shifting as a wave of positive vibrations heading your way looms out on the horizon. Your anticipation grows, but is tempered with the reality of obligations that won't go away just because things are looking up. Finding the right balance now can be tricky, so don't inflate your expectations to the point of assuring disappointment.

I don't know about you Ms. Green, but it all sounds like it could be a promising day.

Pre-departure Meals

I’ve not told many people about this, but one of the reasons that I’m going to Japan is because of the food. I am a food lover in general and I’m very fortunate to live in a city that enjoys a palette that is as diverse as the people living here. Eating Japanese food is especially a privilege here and I look forward to comparing our Western imitations of Japanese food to the real thing.

Maybe this needs clarification and maybe it doesn’t, but my tastes are also a bit broader than the typical “California roll combo,” which is found in its abundance all over Vancouver. Of course I enjoy a good California roll just as much as the next Vancouverite. However, some of my favorite Japanese cuisines include their selection of noodle dishes – ramens, udons, and soba noodles, which are very common here, but also very underappreciated. I was very happy to learn that one of Japan’s leading ramen cities can actually be found in Fukushima prefecture. I’ve read that the city, Kitakata, has one of the highest ratios of ramen bars per capita in the world.

Another recent discovery for me is the Japanese hot pot, or Sukiyaki hot pot, which uses a soy sauce and cabbage base to cook meats and vegetables in. I’ve been a big fan of Chinese and Korean hot pots for a while and the Japanese equivalent ranks just as high for me.



Although I’m looking forward to immersing myself in Japanese cuisine, I am definitely starting to feel a bit of pre-departure anxiety towards the foods that I will be leaving behind. I have for the last few weeks been dealing with the reality of leaving my friends and family behind – my social network, my social safety net, my social security. Similar to these social comforts, I have also enjoyed for most of my life a sense of culinary comfort as well. I can appreciate the fact that I can walk into a restaurant or supermarket and be able to recognize the majority of items here.

Of course, food and people really go together. When I say that I will miss the foods that I’ve enjoyed all of my life in Vancouver, I think that much of this is connected to the people that I’ve had the pleasure of sharing these foods with. Included in this post are some shots that I took of the dinner that Janice and I made for ourselves last night. Although the steaks were a bit tough, I think that it was one of our more successful endeavors to date.

Vancouver Folk Festival

Janice and I went with a friend of ours down to Jericho Beach last night where the Vancouver Folk Festival was on. We went to this festival a couple of years ago and had a great time. This year, we didn’t actually buy tickets to go into the event. We just hung out down at the beaches where we could still hear the music. We didn’t get to stay long or see much this year as the sun was already going down when we arrived, but it was still a memorable evening.

We parked our car about fifteen minutes away from where the festival was going on. As we walked along the beach to the festival, we could hear music from the main stage. As we got closer, their was a group of African drummers playing while people danced around them among tiki torches. There was a couple of guitarists playing among the crowd, but they were drowned out by the thundering rhythms. I love how the spirit of the festival bleeds throughout the surrounding area. All around us, people were tossing Frisbees, playing instruments, drinking wine out of the bottle, showing of skin art, dancing, and enjoying life.





The sound of the music grew louder as we got closer. We arrived at an outdoor market that resembled more of a shantytown where there must have been almost a hundred stalls, each selling handcrafted jewelry, fabrics, paintings, and the like. I’ve never been one for these kinds of trinkets, but still, I love seeing all of the different people and their wares.

I remember when we first arrived at the festival a few years ago. The first image that stuck in my mind was the amount of bikes that had been parked in a grass field. The event had a bike-check system where there must have been a few thousand bikes lined up. Some might say that the event is overrun with hippies, but I think that the population is broader than that. The type of people that make up the event are generally more open to different lifestyles. The event is stands for more than peace and love. It is about being free to be who you want to be and to be exposed to other ways of life – whether it be through music, dance, art, dress, tattoos, food, or people in general.

Inside the event – and the grounds surrounding it, the people are what make the event exciting. When we reached the main-stage a few years ago, the ground in front of the stage was littered with magnificently coloured blankets where people left their chairs, coolers, bags, and other personal belongings. They would leave these items behind for the day while they walked around and enjoyed the festival. Nobody seemed to be worried about anything going missing.

There were no police at the event, or any real security other than the fence surrounding the grounds. We stumbled across the odd person smoking pot and this was the first year that they served alcohol at the event, but although the scene was very lively, it could not be described as rowdy in any regard. I think that it’s pretty amazing that such an event is put together and runs so smoothly. I also love the culture that this city is home to.